about the paycheck protection program, economic injury disaster loans and economic impact payments. whatever the question, or red tape may be, my staff goes the extra mile to serve iowans. they do whatever it takes to track down an answer and help make government work for the people as the government should work for the people. as always, they're in the trenches, during this pandemic, working to help iowans get through this and get through it together. i yield the floor. >> the united states is battling the worst pandemic in 100 years. our nation has poured unprecedented resources into defending americans' health and

blotting the damage to our economy. the senate will continue to work on this front. we'll find more ways to keep strengthening our healthcare response and pivot the nation toward recovery. that will include strong legal protections to defend healthcare workers, small businesses, and other institutions against a trial lawyer feeding frenzy as they work hard to keep serving their neighbors. but madame president, amid the pandemic, we cannot lose sight of the other threats we still face as well. the challenges that we face before covid-19 began to spread from wuhan, china, are still with us today, alongside this awful virus. there are terrorist cells, hostile foreign intelligence services and adversaries all over the world who would love nothing more than for the united states to apply social

distancing to our presence on the world stage as well. iran has not let popular unrest, a mismanaged economy, or even covid-19 slow their aggressive meddling from yemen to the mediterranean. tehran and its proxies are still undermining the sovereignty of iraq and lebanon, aiding and abetting assad's mass murder in syria, sowing regional unrest, threatening israel and targeting american troops and our interests. a regime that chooses to spend its scant resources on exporting violence or so-called space program does not need relief from sanctions. we must maintain the measure of deterrence we restored with a decisive strike on soleimani, that starts today with upholding the president's rightful veto of a misguided war powers

resolution. meanwhile, in apparent repudiation of the trump administration's efforts to help end the civil war in afghanistan, taliban attacks against the country's government and its people have actually spiked. and isis, al qaeda and other terrorists continues to operate from afghan territory. in moscow, putin's regime continues to threaten american interest along with international security, from bullying incursions in the free states it used to rule, and the power vacuums of syria and libya to spreading disinformation and undermining democracies all across the globe. and russian intelligence is not alone in targeting america. china's efforts to steal government industry secrets are unmatched. countering these kinds of

hostile activities is a key job of our intelligence community, so is stopping terrorist attacks against our homeland. so next week, the senate will turn back to reauthorizing the critical authorities in the foreign intelligence surveillance act. the house passed legislation we'll take up is not a blanket reauthorization of fisa. it is a careful update designed to provide greater accountability for the ways these authorities are exercised. it will increakreecrease transpn the fisa process and respond to the shameful abuses of 2016 while preserving the tool box that professionals use to defend us. i hope the senate will pass it next week, free of amendments that would jeopardize important tools to keep america safe. and then madame president, there is the matter of the people's republic of china. this coronavirus pandemic originated in china. whether the virus escaped from a

lab or was transmitted at a so-called wet market, we do not yet know for sure. but chinese communist party leaders probably do know. and they owe it to all of the nation suffering from this virus to be truthful and to be transparent. the world deserves the facts, all of the facts. here's one fact we do know: the virus spread was exacerbated by china's unconscionable efforts to cover it up. the communist party reprimanded and threatened to jail the doctor, the heroic whistle-blower to tried to warn the world of covid-19 and later died from it. within hours of his death, by the way, the wave of outrage over ccp's treatment of the doctor spread on chinese social media until the government

censored that as well. at the peak of the outbreak, the chinese communist party was reportedly wielding its own people inside their own houses -- welding them inside their own houses. today you better believe the party is training their sights on the chinese survivors, activists and lawyers who dare to seek the truth. outside the borders, china's leaders seem to think they can either charm or threaten the world into submission. they supposedly donated medical supplies to foreign countries that quickly proved faulty and unusable. they threatened to boycott australian beef. they even threatened to cut off pharmaceutical exports to the u.s. so that we would, quote, plunge into the mighty sea of

coronavirus, end quote. it's galling but not surprising. this is the same authoritarian regime that's brutalized the weaker people in modern day, that has spent years of cheating its way through international commerce and stealing industrial secrets. now it is exploiting the global pandemic that it helped exacerbate, the further its crackdown on hong kong. a few weeks ago, the government arrested peaceful democracy activists including my old friend of almost three decades, martin lee. i suppose they thought the rest of the world might be too distracted to notice. they were mistaken. madame president, alongside our friends and partners around the world, the united states is going to be asking tough questions about our relationship with the chinese communist party. i expect the senate will soon look to pass senate rubio's human rights policy act, a

bipartisan bill that will bring more attention to the plight of this mistreated minority and urge the president to use targeted sanctions against those responsible for the repression. and while we and our allies already saw the risk from letting critical supply chains become too dependent on china, the chinese communist party's recent behavior has certainly hammered this home. i'm confident that we here in washington will be examining these strategic vulnerabilities as well. we'll be looking for the best ways to strengthen our dynamic and innovative private sector, keep america on the cutting edge, and work closely with friends who share our values and interests to build a fairer, more resilient international market. notice, madame president, that china is not retrenching or drawing back within its borders. quite the opposite.

we want to preserve a world built on our democratic values and principles if we want to protect american workers, american interests and american national security. all of these things will take more global leadership and more coordination with our allies, not less. tomorrow, may 8th, is the 75th anniversary. if we ever needed a reminder that america strength is a force for good in the world, there it is. thanks to the tireless of work of our colleagues tomorrow was meant to be the dedication of the new eisenhower memorial. it's been postponed due to the virus. it almost seems fitting that 75 years after world war ii, the celebration of president eisenhower would be delayed by a global crisis that will take american strength and american leadership to resolve. he certainly knew something about that kind of situation. now as then the american people do not want to retreat from the

world, and they don't want to see us slide into second place. they want us to be smart and strong and safe, and they want the united states of america to lead. >> madame president, tomorrow the bureau of labor statistics will publish its monthly jobs report for april. some experts are projecting that it could show well over 20 million job losses in the past four weeks. the preliminary report today suggests there will be over 30 million newly unemployed americans over the past seven weeks. that's a tenth, one at of ten people losing their job, tenth of our population. we're looking at what seems to be the worst economic crisis since the great depression. small businesses have shuttered. some larger businesses have